


is this how it ends (is this how it starts)

by whyyesitscar



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, post ep 93
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22560301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whyyesitscar/pseuds/whyyesitscar
Summary: Beau has done enough talking over the past few days, about things she never wanted to face and to people she never wanted to see again, and she's over it. She's over it and she's so, so angry at everyone. More than once she thinks about cracking her staff against a tree just to get whatever this is roiling inside out of her.(beau and the rest of the party have a lot to talk about, after the witch)
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Caleb Widogast, Beauregard Lionett & The Mighty Nein, Beauregard Lionett & Yasha, Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 48
Kudos: 398





	is this how it ends (is this how it starts)

**Author's Note:**

> still in shock, i can't believe marisha and laura find new ways to make me love their characters each week
> 
> title + lyrics from 'a million other things' by pronoun
> 
> guard your hearts and pls enjoy

_now, tell me—are you tough?_  
_can you love somebody  
_ _while you pick yourself up?_

/

Beau doesn't talk to anyone as they walk back. Yasha is the only one who doesn't try to make her. Caleb and Fjord are the first to ask questions—not in an accusing way, or meant to hurt, but simply to understand. Caleb, so analytical and forward-thinking, wants to know exactly what she said just in case it comes back to bite them later. For a man so afraid of his past and so prone to running, he has turned into quite the protector.

Fjord of course wants to know how she's doing. He wants to check in and let her talk, as if that will soothe the flight response that's lodged itself in her throat. Beau has done enough talking over the past few days, about things she never wanted to face and to people she never wanted to see again, and she's over it. She's over it and she's so, so angry at everyone. More than once she thinks about cracking her staff against a tree just to get whatever this is roiling inside out of her.

Even Caduceus has a question or two, though he thankfully stops asking at the look on her face after the second one. They're all too much; he's too much—his big cow eyes and floppy ears, the way every part of him seems like something she could sink into if she let herself. But she can't let herself because this anger and these feelings are all she has. The Mighty Nein is over; she's fractured it irreparably or killed it outright. When they get back to Kamordah and out of the woods, Beau is going to leave the first chance she gets. It doesn't matter if she can't give her solitude to the witch; Beau has already detached herself.

Anyway. She doesn't sink. Beau walks faster and doesn't wait for any of them.

Nott, the only one capable of keeping up with her or possibly the only one audacious enough to try, runs circles around her legs. She doesn't ask anything but rather offers her thanks—her admonishments, her disbelief, her explanations for what she offered the witch. Nott says all of these things to wear Beau down, to goad her into any kind of response. But Beau is steel, no longer heated and malleable but hard, sharp and unyielding. Eventually, Nott calms down and just walks next to her. This is a companion she can tolerate, for now.

Jester sends her four messages—all of the messages she's capable of sending. Beau responds to none of them.

_Beau, you never really said if Yasha was right; if you really were going to leave us. You wouldn’t have gone through with it, right?_

_I think maybe you’re just sad from talking to your dad and I get it, Beau; I know it’s hard. But that doesn’t mean you—_

_You look tired and sad and I know this won’t be easy to fix, but friends help. Please come walk with me, and we can—_

_Okay, so, you definitely weren’t avoiding me before because it didn’t feel like—don’t do this, Beau. You’re smarter than that and it’s not fair._

Caleb makes the dome when they're more than halfway back to town. It's stupid, so stupid to sleep in this forest. Beau would gladly push until she collapsed. But he's the one so good at being vulnerable, for his sake and hers, and she doesn't want to speak yet.

So they find a hidden spot and Beau raises her hand to take first watch, glancing at Jester and daring her to join. Jester glares right back, silently.

It's Yasha, in the end, who sits with her. The forest is loud and awake, even as it shifts to night. Perhaps especially as it shifts to night. Beau isn’t sure which she's more jealous of—the rest of the party asleep in the dome, or the forest creatures who are only ever concerned with survival, how to attack and defend what little they have, even if it's nothing.

"I know you don't want to talk, Beau," Yasha offers after some of the yips and chirps of the night calm down. "I would just like to say that...I understand penance. In a way, I think you are mine. But I don't understand what you think your transgression is."

Beau clears her throat. “Yasha," she says, hoarse and weary. "Shut the fuck up.”

Yasha nods. “Yes. Okay. I apologize.”

It turns out no one is sleeping when they retrieve Nott and Caduceus for second watch.

Beau lies down and turns away from all of them. She doesn't try to stay awake or fall asleep. Her body will have to make that decision for her; she's lost her ability to make good ones, apparently. She crosses her arms and shifts onto her side.

It's sleep, in the end.

/

They don't run into any trouble on the way out. The hot itch at the back of Beau's neck only gets worse. She leads them out of the brush, back past her parents' estate, into the barren fields outside of town—as far as she can go before it becomes clear that she's walking just for the sake of walking.

Caleb stops her with a gentle touch to her arm. He hastily draws a teleportation circle and drags her through it when it's ready, before she even has time to think about whether she wanted to resist. They're in Rexxentrum an instant later, and Beau immediately breathes a little looser. Not lighter, not easier, but—distance does a lot. Beau tried her best to make it do more.

Caleb takes the lead this time. They head out of the Archives to a quieter street, one filled with craft and artisanal shops. The only people walking around here already knew where it was, or wandered in accidentally. They follow him around a few corners until he finds a moderately beaten-down bar.

The building it's in is very long but the main room is small as they step in. Everyone lingers by the doorway save for Caleb, who marches straight to the bar and drops three platinum onto the counter.

“We will pay any amount,” he says to the woman behind the bar, “for a private room and a steady supply of drinks.”

“Caleb…”

“No, Beauregard!” he yells. He turns his attention back to the woman. “Any amount,” he repeats, and she nods.

She directs them behind a set of imposing double doors, promises she'll have a round up soon. ( _Whiskeys and two milks_ , Caleb makes sure to say).

The room is clearly made to host a large number of people; there are long tables lining the walls and a large round one in the middle. Beau perches on top of one of the long tables, resting her feet on the bench seating and her elbows on her knees. Everyone else settles somewhere near her, as if they still think she’s going to run; as if none of them could stop her with a spell if she somehow managed to break free.

No one says anything until the bartender shows up with the drinks, and even a few moments after that.

Beau sighs. Someone has to start it, if they’re going to get this over with.

“So,” she says.

“What the _fuck_ , Beau?” Jester blurts.

“What the fuck me; what the fuck, Nott?” Beau counters, flinging an arm in the direction of the goblin. “You were gonna start a whole fucking _war_?”

“Okay, hold on,” Fjord interrupts. “Just...take it back a few steps. We clearly have a lot that we need to talk about.” He turns to Jester. “Jes, you still haven’t told us exactly what you did to get her to remove the curse.”

“Well, I—” Jester looks between Beau and Fjord, clearly trying to decide whether she’s going to play along or continue to yell at Beau. She huffs loudly. “I offered her my hands first but I think she wanted to take them _and_ my ability to draw and stuff so, you know, I had to improvise, so. I gave her half of a moldy cupcake that had the Dust of Deliciousness on it and then I...modified her memory…”

Caleb looks truly taken aback. He stands with his hands on his hips, mouth slightly open and eyes unblinking. “Jester,” he whispers. “What kind of memory did you create?”

“Just, you know, that she was so happy to be with me that she agreed to lift Nott’s curse. And it worked! So whatever, it’s okay, let’s talk about something else.”

Caleb kicks a chair instead. “Verdammt, Jester! If it hadn’t worked, she would have known what you tried to do and you would have been in there alone.”

“I know, but—”

“More than likely she would have killed you, Jester—you know this, ja?”

Jester pulls at the hem of her skirt, anger giving way to uncertainty for the first time in days. “Well,” she waffles, “but she didn’t, so…”

“But she _could have_ ,” Beau interjects.

Caleb holds up a hand and throws Beau an icy glare. “Are you sure that it worked? Nott doesn’t look any different.”

Jester nods quickly. “It definitely worked; I know it did. She waved her hands and everything went really dark for a second, and she said she never breaks a deal. And, it’s not like Nott was going to change back anyway; we were just trying to remove the curse. Which we did, and now you and Essek can do that spell again, and—we’ll be good.”

Caleb doesn’t say anything. Barely even moves, but his shoulders fall a little and he relaxes his jaw. “I don’t think you realize how incredibly lucky you were,” he says, quiet and commanding. “Clearly we need to have a conversation about magic, but that can come later.”

Jester’s ‘okay’ is just as quiet, though not as confident.

There’s silence for a few moments as drinks are finished, throats are clear and chairs shifted. Beau waits for someone else to start, someone else to find a reason why what Jester did was the stupidest, craziest thing anyone could have done.

No one speaks.

“That’s it?” she eventually blurts. “Are you fucking kidding me—Jester offers up her _literal entire hands_ and all anyone has to say about it is that she was reckless? What are you now, Professor Widogast? You wanna have her copy a hundred spells as punishment, too?”

“Hold on, Beau,” Fjord interrupts.

But Beau is undeterred. “No, let’s stay on this for a while! Jester would have walked out without any fucking hands; I feel like everyone is ignoring that when we should absolutely fucking talk about it. What the fuck is Jester supposed to do without her hands?”

“What were we supposed to do without you, Beau?” Jester fires back.

“Whatever the fuck you _want_!” Beau yells. She throws her shot glass against the wall. All of them listen to it shatter and settle in pieces on the floor. “God, how the fuck should I know. You can do everything when I’m gone.”

“ _When_ you’re gone?” Beau feels the hairs on the back of her neck raise at the tone of Jester’s voice. Never has it been clearer that her powers are rooted in ice. “So you’re still planning on leaving.”

Beau sets her jaw, sits up a little straighter. “Everyone leaves eventually, Jes. Might as well do something noble with it.”

“Something selfish,” Jester whispers.

“Excuse me?”

Jester clicks her tongue. “You can’t just make these decisions by yourself, Beau; not when they affect us, too.”

Beau furrows her brows and scoffs. “Sorry, isn’t that what we were all doing? Presenting that witch with our offers and then eventually we’d have to pick one.” She looks around at the group, all of whom blush or look away. “I didn’t do it, okay; we’re all focusing on what I could have done, but I didn’t do it. I gave her my offer and I walked back out so we could talk about it.”

“So you could _tell_ us about it,” Jester counters. “You weren’t going to let us stop you, Beau.”

“But you _did_ stop me!”

“Only because I fixed it faster! Only because I did something before I walked out of the hut!”

“Because you made a decision—by yourself, and one that affects all of us, right?”

“Well—”

“You did the exact thing you’re telling me I _can’t_ do, but you have the moral high-ground because—what, because it worked? C’mon, Jes.”

Jester looks helplessly between Caleb, Caduceus, and Fjord. “Well—it’s different…”

“How?” Beau challenges. She stands and crosses her arms, looking expectantly at Jester. “Because this is how I see it—we came to Kamordah for Nott. I didn’t want to come to Kamordah but I did—for Nott. After we talked to my dad—which I hated, for so many reasons, but tolerated, again, for Nott—we found this witch who told us we could trade misery to break the curse. I offered to come here for Nott, I offered to leave for Nott. How is that not a fair trade? How is that not the same?”

“Because...because it’s not, Beau!” Jester sputters. “Because coming to Kamordah was hard, sure; but it was—”

“The right thing to do?” Beau shrugs. “Seems like making any kind of offer was the right thing to do, if everyone was doing it.”

Jester stomps her feet a little; her tail lands in her open hands and she bends it back and forth. “It’s not the same, Beau; I know it’s not. Nott wants her body back so she can be with her family and you—you were going to throw yours away.”

Beau huffs, closes her eyes and rubs harshly at her temples. “You make it sound so unnecessary when it wasn’t, Jes—”

“It _was_!” Jester shouts. “No one asked you to do it.”

“That’s the whole point, Jester; no one ever needed to ask!”

Caduceus is suddenly in between them, one step away from holding his arms out toward each of them to prevent any contact. “I think we need to try approaching this another way,” he says, calm and low, “so both of you can hear each other. Jester, you had time to explain your encounter with the witch. It’s only fair that Beau gets the same chance.”

Jester swallows a few times before eventually nodding. “Okay,” she concedes.

“Okay.” Caduceus rests a big hand on Jester’s shoulder. She doesn’t say anything, but Beau can see her lean into his touch. He turns back to Beau with kind eyes and a soft smile. “We’re all listening, Beau, for as long as you need to talk.”

Beau sighs. She doesn’t want to do this. She’s talked too much lately and what she almost did, it’s so—it’s pretty fuckin’ simple. She shouldn’t have to explain it. But no one really seems to get it, and Beau belongs to the Cobalt Soul. This is pretty much her job.

Yasha is what pushes Beau over the edge, standing against the wall with her arms crossed. She offers a small nod and sad, sympathetic eyes. If anyone could do this for Beau, it would be her. But Yasha has been through enough.

“The witch was looking for a trade—Nott’s happiness for an equal amount of misery. It’s the perfect offer, right? Nott wants everything back, I offer to lose everything. One-for-one, you know, and there’s no collateral damage. All I have to do to fix Nott is disappear somewhere by myself for the rest of my life, which was probably going to happen anyway. I guess that makes it sound kinda dramatic, but—” Beau shrugs. “Doesn’t mean it can’t be right.”

Jester takes a few big breaths. She looks like she’s trying very hard to contain her anger. “Why would—why would you want to do that?”

“I _don’t_ want to do it, Jes,” Beau replies, shaking her head a little. “Obviously that’s why it’s the perfect offer. It would make me so fucking miserable, but it would work, so.”

“And that makes it...okay?”

“Well—yeah. No?” Beau shrugs. “It makes it...logical.” Beau scans the room, taking in everyone’s confused faces. She sighs. “Maybe I’m not explaining myself well.”

“I think you’re explaining yourself very well,” Caduceus replies. “We just...happen to disagree with you.”

“What? Why?” Beau furrows her brows, joining in the confusion. “Everything gets taken away eventually. At least it’s better when you can control it.”

“What do you mean?” Jester asks. She sits down like someone is about to tell her that her mom died. Beau tries not to be distracted by the anguish in her eyes.

“Don’t—c’mon, that’s the theme of all of us, right? My family robbed me of any sort of happy childhood, and then the Cobalt Soul kidnapped me. Nott’s family, Caleb’s family, Yasha’s wife…” She starts ticking off their traumas on her fingers. “Fjord’s powers, Jester’s dad, fucking...Molly. Caleb, Yash, help me out here.”

“I can see why you think that, Beau,” Yasha says after a moment of silence. “There are times when I still believe that myself. But this family—I believe in all of you more and more. Sometimes, things just...stay.”

“You asked me once to believe in this group,” Caleb adds. “I would ask the same thing of you now, Beauregard.”

“Wh—I do, man, but—”

“This isn’t the family you grew up with, Beau,” Fjord says. “We don’t have conditions.”

“Beau.” Jester is crying now, fast and unchecked, though her voice is free of tears. “Do you realize how much we love you?”

“I—yeah, I love you guys, too. No one’s ever done more for me than you all have. But there’s—everything that has a beginning has an ending too, right? And I’d rather go out on my own terms; that’s all.”

Yasha shakes her head. “It’s going to take a while for this to sink in, I think. And that’s okay. But you should know now—when you told the witch you would willingly go into exile, you weren’t just offering your misery. You were offering ours, and that’s not a fair trade.”

Everything inside Beau flutters at that. Her heart skips a beat; her stomach drops somewhere below her knees. Her pulse races and breaths come faster, shallower, as she takes in the sincerity and sadness in everyone’s eyes.

Caleb clocks her mounting anxiety immediately, able to recognize a person on the edge after having spent so long atop it himself. He strides forward and rests a hand on Beau’s shoulder. He doesn’t squeeze it, doesn’t pull her closer. But it’s a nice anchor, nonetheless.

“Let’s go home,” he says quietly. “We can reconvene after everyone has had some time to breathe, ja?” There are nods from everyone as they all stand, stretching tired limbs and muscles, the tension in the room momentarily broken. “Okay.” Caleb offers Beau a small smile, moving his hand from her shoulder to grip the back of her neck. “We are—I am here, Beauregard, for the times you feel like this.”

This is the closest they’ve been since their awkward hug in Labenda, probably the longest they’ve touched. Caleb looks at her until she nods; it’s all Beau can do not to cry, too.

Caleb takes a deep breath and pats her neck. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Yasha is at the front of the pack, having stayed closest to the door, but everyone else offers Beau a comforting touch as they walk back into the main bar area. Fjord extends a quiet thank you to the bartender, who rummages underneath the counter.

“Hold on,” she says. She stands back up with a dirty bottle of something dark, which she tosses to Beau. “You all need some therapy, but this should help for now.”

Beau scoffs. Everyone else chuckles, and Caleb throws a small wave over his shoulder as he exits back onto the street.

Jester finds her way to Beau’s side this time. She hooks her pinky around Beau’s, and they walk like that all the way back to the Archives.

/

Beau spends the rest of the day alone once they get back to the Xhorhaus, not always in the same place. Sometimes she’s in Caduceus’s tree, sometimes the training room. Wherever she goes, she goes louder than usual just so no one thinks she’s disappeared. More than once she hears footsteps hovering outside of whichever room she’s in. Beau doesn’t tell them to go away. She just doesn’t say anything.

Eventually, the smell of Caduceus’s cooking is too alluring to ignore. She hoists herself out of the hot tub and towels off, wishing, not for the first or last time, that she could simply magic herself dry.

No one says anything as she walks into the kitchen. They have dinner together, lighter than they’ve been in weeks even if everyone is pretending. Beau smiles and laughs and she means it. This is definitely the part of family she never doubted—the part that relaxes, that sinks into comfort and affection with ease. Beau will never be happier than she is with this group of people.

They leave in batches—Caleb and Nott to talk, then Fjord and Caduceus to meditate. Yasha lingers, making a pot of tea almost as tasty as Caduceus does. Maybe Beau is the one everyone is sad about now, but there is so much they don’t know about Yasha, and not just the stuff she doesn’t know about herself. Beau watches her hands as she pours three cups—her fingers, usually so clumsy unless they’re fighting, are light and sure.

Beau almost asks about her life before them. But it would ruin the mood, and the past has loomed large enough in recent weeks.

Yasha stands when they’ve all emptied their cups. She hooks the handles of Beau and Jester’s mugs in her fingers, giving them a quick rinse in the sink.

“I think I’ll go to sleep now,” she says. “It’s been—I am very tired.”

Beau gets up as well, stretching her arms and cracking her neck. “Fuck, me too,” she groans. Jester pokes her side and smiles at the inadvertent noise Beau lets out.

They walk upstairs together; Yasha pauses before continuing onto her room as they stop outside the door to Beau and Jester’s. She rests both hands on Beau’s shoulders.

“We have talked a lot today,” she says, smiling a little. “I don’t want to say too much more, but…” She pulls Beau into a hug; Beau takes a moment to be surprised before hugging back. “I am not far away,” Yasha whispers.

Jester all but leaps into Yasha’s arms when she pulls away from Beau. They laugh together and Yasha leaves for her room, closing the door almost silently behind her.

Beau lets Jester step into their room first. She leans against the door when she shuts it, takes a deep breath, and looks at Jester.

Fear comes back with a dizzying vengeance.

“I’ve never been so mad at you,” Jester murmurs, low and dangerous.

“I know.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this mad at anyone.”

“Well, I did say I wanted to see it.”

But it isn’t the time for jokes, and Jester’s eyes flare with anger. “Don’t do that, Beau.” She sits down on her bed and scoots back to rest against the headboard. “I thought we meant more to you than that, I thought I—”

“You do, Jester,” Beau insists. “I know I said it before and maybe it still doesn’t fly but, that’s exactly why I offered what I did. You guys are—you’re all I have to give away.”

“Well, don’t,” Jester snaps. “You don’t let go of things that mean that much to you.”

“Your mom did.” Jester actually gasps and Beau backs off immediately. “Sorry. Not my place.”

Jester nods. “Thanks.” She looks down at her fingers, twiddling them in her lap. “I’ve learned so many things since I left Nicodranas, you know? I used to—I used to think that I’d find a fairytale someday but that doesn’t...it doesn’t work like that. So many things have been hard about our lives, but loving everyone was the easiest part. And I guess, I guess I thought you felt the same.” Jester sucks in a shaky breath, unable to stop her lip from quivering. “I didn’t think you’d ever make me feel disposable.”

“Jes…”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t do that because you’re not the one feeling it, Beau.”

Beau swallows a few times, hoping to get down whatever’s blocking her throat. It isn’t anything physical, she knows, but it only hurts to try. “Yeah,” she whispers, unsuccessful. “Okay. I’m sorry, Jester.”

“Thank you.” She sighs and looks up. Jester tries to take a few deep breaths but it sounds like everything is clogged, and she ends up opening her mouth instead, hiccuping a sob before she can stifle it. Beau wonders if this is what happens to the people she loves—if she turns them into parts of themselves where once there was a whole. Perhaps Beau is contagious.

“Jes, do you want me to, um—”

Jester clears her throat, shaking her head a little. “I know we’ve talked before, about how love is different than any kind of book, and sometimes the differences are good and fun. And I knew it was going to be hard, leaving my mama when I love her so much, but I was ready for that kind of sad. It’s kind of, it’s still kind of nice, you know? Missing someone because you love them _so_ much. But this is—I don’t know, Beau.” She swallows. Beau watches tears drip onto her blanket. “I don’t know what to do with this.”

Beau threads her fingers behind her head, clamping her arms tightly over her ears, and turns away. She stays like that for a long moment, squeezing against herself as hard as she can to the point where her vision darkens a little at the edges.

“Jester, I’m—I’m gonna give you some space, okay? But I promise I’m staying in the house. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“I mean it; I’ll be in yelling distance.”

“Okay.”

She doesn’t sound okay, of course, and for a second Beau thinks of staying. But Jester doesn’t ask her to, so Beau heaves a breath and grabs the doorknob.

“Jes, I—” She turns around and sighs at Jester’s forlorn figure. _—love you_ , is how she should end her sentence. “I’m really sorry,” is what she says instead.

Jester nods and Beau leaves, leaning her head against the door once she’s on the other side.

She should have said it anyway.

/

Beau has every intention of finding Nott, but only when she’s calmed down. The next time she runs into Dairon, they’re gonna have a hell of a training session.

There are two ways to get to Nott and Yeza’s room, through Yasha’s room or the war room. Beau could leave Yasha alone, since she said she was going to get some sleep. But she knows Yasha. Sleep never comes easy.

So she knocks on Yasha’s door, smiling a little at how quickly she hears movement. Yasha opens up, concern all over her face. _She probably looks like that all the time_ , Beau thinks, and then she starts to cry.

“Hey, Yash,” she mumbles, thick and stilted.

“Beau…” Yasha guides Beau into her room, her hand warm on Beau’s back.

Beau tries to suppress her tears too early and ends up with hiccups instead. “I think I—I think I really fucked up.”

Yasha’s hand doesn’t move. “Yes,” she says, and Beau laughs a little too loudly. “But this can be fixed.”

“I don’t know, Yash; everything is pretty shit right now…”

“Beau.” Yasha’s hand grips her shoulder with a little more intent. “I almost cut you in half not even two weeks ago, and you haven’t directed a single angry word at me.” Yasha smiles, bending a little to look Beau in the eye. “Jester is even nicer than you.”

“Yeah, well,” Beau chuckles, wiping her nose with her wrist, “that’s not too hard.”

“Perhaps harder than you think.” Yasha grabs onto the back of Beau’s robes and turns her, lifting her off the ground for a moment. “You have five gold, yes?”

“What?”

Yasha wraps Beau in a hug, this one sturdier and tighter than the last. “My rates have gone up but I can give you a discount just this once.”

Beau presses her cheek tightly into Yasha’s chest. “Pretty expensive-ass arms.”

“And worth every penny.”

“Yeah.”

It’s kind of like being hugged by Caduceus, with the height difference, except Yasha is wider. Beau feels like if someone walked in right now they wouldn’t even see her. Yasha is easy to sink into. A year ago Beau might have found that surprising. Now, she’s grateful.

“Yasha?”

“Hm?”

“What did it feel like, loving your wife?”

“Mm.” Yasha is quiet as she readjusts, resting her chin on the top of Beau’s head. It’s not as sharp as Beau would have thought. “A bit like this, I suppose. I mean—”

“I know.” Beau sniffs and resists the urge to swipe her nose across Yasha’s shirt. “I just...I don’t know what to do.”

“Well. You owe Jester an apology and a lot of honesty.”

“Yeah.” Beau pulls back a little so she can butt the top of her head against Yasha’s torso. “Fuck.”

Yasha laughs, stepping back as she slides her hands down Beau’s arms. “Beau, I’m definitely not the expert, but I think we all can see that your relationship with Jester is very special. I can’t speak for Jester but—I don’t think it’s only special on one side.”

“Thanks, Yash.” Beau finally wipes her nose, tips her head back even more to stop it from running again. “Listen, I, um, I’m sorry. About how I was at the beginning. I didn’t know about Zuala, but even that’s not—”

Yasha puts up a hand to stop her. “It’s okay, Beau. It was, it was nice—to have something fun again. Besides, I definitely get it.” She actually winks and Beau temporarily forgets to be sad. “All of the women in my tribe were very strong.”

“Yeah?” Beau smiles. “Dope; I’d love to hear about them sometime.”

“Sometime,” Yasha agrees. She walks Beau to the door and gently opens it. “If you try to leave again,” she says before Beau steps out, “I will cut you in half for real.”

Beau scratches at the nape of her neck. “Thanks, I think. I, um—” She points at the door on the other side of Yasha’s room. “I was actually gonna go talk to Nott.”

“Oh! I believe she is downstairs with Caleb.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. Thanks.”

Yasha gives her a small wave and Beau walks downstairs feeling a little lighter.

Nott and Caleb are definitely talking in his room; Beau can hear their hushed, agitated voices as she stops outside.

“Nott?” Beau knocks, three quick raps—a habit she hasn’t yet broken from her days in the monastery. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

Caleb says something while Nott scrabbles closer. She opens the door quickly, a look of surprise on her face as if she hadn’t actually expected Beau to be there.

“You want to talk to me? Not Caleb?”

“Yeah, um. I just have a quick question. We can step out for a minute or we can talk right here; I don’t care.” Nott grabs her wrist and yanks her inside. “Jeez, one of these days I’d love to walk into a room on my own.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Hey, Caleb.”

Caleb waves and smiles, using as much of his face as he ever has.

“What do you want?” Nott blurts.

“Well.” Beau stuffs her hands in her pockets, suddenly preoccupied with the floor. “We have a lot of shit to unpack and I’m sorry that most of it’s mine.”

“It’s okay, Beauregard,” Caleb says, at the same time that Nott says, “Apology accepted.” She winces playfully as Caleb flicks her shoulder.

Beau watches them for a moment. “Anyway. That’s not what I’m here to ask, but it needed saying all the same. I was just wondering about, well, if things had gone differently with the witch—”

“Different how?” Nott asks.

“I mean, you know, if Jester hadn’t tricked her, for one. But also, if you’d taken any of us up on our offers—which one would it have been?”

“I mean, _I_ made an offer too,” Nott says, as if Beau’s missing the obvious.

Beau rolls her eyes. “As if we would have let you start a war.”

“As much as we would have let you leave, Beauregard,” Caleb chimes in.

Beau turns her attention back to Nott. “Would you have?”

Nott squints her eyes the same way she does when she and Jester are “solving” a case. “Why?”

“I just...I need to know if I really read everything completely wrong.”

“Oh.” Nott pulls at her ears, then shakes them out. “You didn’t,” she finally says.

“Cool.” Beau breathes in and feels her lungs expand more than they have in a while. “Awesome, thanks. That really helps.”

“Sure,” Nott mumbles.

“We’ll talk later, okay?” This she directs toward Caleb, who nods after tearing his eyes away from Nott. “And, um, thanks again for—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Caleb says.

“You’re welcome!” Nott shouts as Beau walks away.

/

It’s such a routine, so familiar, to walk back to the room she shares with Jester, that Beau doesn’t even think about if Jester wants her there. She simply walks up the stairs, turns a few corners, and opens the door, as if it’s just another night.

“Beau?”

It kind of feels like it, when Jester says her name like that. This is the Jester that Beau hears when she gets to bed late, after sparring with Dairon or just with a dummy in the training room. Jester says her name like she’s not even aware of it, still mostly asleep and groggy; like her mouth formed the word while she was still dreaming.

“Yeah, hey,” Beau answers (the same way she always does). “It’s me.”

“You weren’t gone for very long.”

“Oh.” Beau’s stomach drops and she tightens the hand still clasping the doorknob. “Did you want—I can go bunk with Yasha or something. For the night, or—”

“No.” Beau can see Jester’s silhouette shaking its head. “I’m just surprised. I’m glad you’re here.”

“That’s, um. Wow, that’s really great to hear, Jes.” Beau exhales long and loud, sucks in another big breath and does it again.

“Good.” Jester shifts in the darkness; from the shape of her shadow, Beau thinks that she’s drawn her knees up to her chest. “I talked with Mama about you a little bit.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, well, obviously I couldn’t tell her everything because of the spell. I need one of those fancy stones that Yussa and Allura have.”

“I’ll buy you ten,” Beau promises.

“Beau…” Jester giggles and Beau’s knees almost give out. “Come over here.”

“I can’t see you, Jes. Me and my weak human eyes.”

“Yeah, but I can see you. Besides, you know where my bed is.”

Beau does. She starts walking the wrong direction anyway, as a test.

Jester laughs again. “Beau!”

Beau pivots and is at Jester’s bed in a few steps. She flops down on the end of it. “Just checkin’,” she smiles.

She can see Jester now that she’s closer—the blur of her face and the clarity of her eyes. They don’t look as sad as before, if that means anything.

“What did your mom say?”

“Well.” Jester crosses her legs underneath her blanket. “She wants to talk to you very much, first of all.”

“Yell at me, more like,” Beau infers.

“Probably.”

Beau leans back on her hands, nodding. “That’s fair.”

“She also said we need a vacation.”

“Mm. That probably won’t happen for a while.”

“True, true. And she said that—” Beau can’t see her too clearly, but she thinks Jester is playing with the hem of her blanket. “That you probably weren’t trying to hurt any of us, and definitely not me specifically. That you only thought you were hurting yourself.”

“Your mom’s pretty smart.”

“She also said that—come here.” Jester kicks her legs from under her covers and curls them into the corner of the mattress. Beau waits for her to finish before scooting up the bed, stopping once she brushes Jester’s knee with her thigh. Up close, Jester is very tired. There are bags under her eyes and her makeup is smudged. Beau marvels at the tenderness in her eyes, the generosity in her cheeks. Jester has freckles on her nose that Beau has never seen before.

Beau’s heart rate spikes when Jester places her hands on Beau’s cheeks. She swipes at the fatigue on Beau’s face, tucks a bit of loose hair behind her ear. Jester takes in a big breath, smiles, and kisses her.

Beau has never believed in any god until now.

Beau is dying to sink into Jester but she’s afraid to touch her anywhere but the lips, afraid she’ll reach too far and ruin the moment. But Jester—gracious, wonderful Jester—picks up Beau’s hand and wraps it around her back. It’s all the hint Beau needs, and she pulls Jester closer, finds a better angle and guides them both down to the mattress. Beau didn’t know how starved she was until Jester offered her a feast.

Beau kisses Jester until she feels filled, until the threat of tears looms too large to ignore. She pulls away, gasping, and collapses onto Jester’s chest. Beau sobs, loud and ugly, repeating apologies whenever she can manage to get out a few words.

Jester holds her as she lets it all out. She strokes Beau’s hair, leaving the occasional kiss on her forehead. Every day with Jester, Beau learns a little bit more about what love means.

She runs out of tears eventually, and Jester waits for her to calm down. She pulls the blanket over both of them, makes sure it’s wrapped around Beau’s bare shoulders.

“Mama also said that if you ever felt like leaving again, I shouldn’t let you go until I made sure you had all the facts.”

“Oh yeah?” Beau sniffs. “What kind of facts?”

Beau feels Jester shrug more than she sees it.

“That I love you,” she says simply. “That one time you mentioned all of us getting a house together in Nicodranas when all of this is over, and I can’t think of anything I want more. That when you were talking to your dad, I said I would stay, and I mean it, Beau; I’m staying forever, even when you try to push me away. I know—I know we have a lot to talk about, and we will. But I have to tell you that you’re not on your own anymore, Beau. You have everyone in this house and so many friends and always, always me. Okay?”

Beau leans up to kiss Jester again, ignoring the fact that she’s still crying and this isn’t making breathing any easier. Jester wraps her hands around Beau’s back, wraps her tail around Beau’s ankle, and Beau has never felt so safe. Beau clutches at the collar of Jester’s nightshirt and pulls her in as close as she can. It’s still not close enough. Maybe it never will be.

(Hopefully).

“Jes, I love you so much,” she whispers. “I’m sorry I ever—I should have believed in you; I just, I got so—I’m so sorry.” Beau slides down a little, nestling into the crook of Jester’s neck. She rests a hand on Jester’s stomach and slows her breathing until they’re in sync. “You keep saving me.”

“Duh,” Jester murmurs. “Get used to it.”

“I hope I never do.”

Jester pinches her nose until Beau scrunches it and shakes her off. Jester smells like she does when she takes a late-night bath, like eucalyptus and whatever other oils Caduceus always seems to have. Beau could recognize Jester just by that smell.

Jester picks up Beau’s hand underneath the blanket and threads their fingers together. It’s awkward, and they’ll be sore in the morning after sustaining this position for so long. But the more of Jester that Beau touches, the calmer she feels. It seems Jester feels the same way. Jester yawns, mumbling a soft ‘good night’, and closes her eyes.

Beau sleeps.


End file.
